Society for the German Language
| Society for the German Language V. (GfdS) |
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|---|---|
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| purpose | Professional society |
| Chair: | Peter Schlobinski |
| Establishment date: | 1947 |
| Number of members: | around 3000 |
| Seat : |
Wiesbaden , Germany
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| Website: | gfds.de |
The German Language Society ( GfdS ) is a mainly by the German Standing Conference and the Minister of State -funded organization , which has set itself the task of the German language to maintain and to explore and to make the function of the German language in a global context visible. The GfdS critically accompanies the current language change and gives recommendations for language use.
The association was founded by District Court Director Max Wachler in 1947 as the successor organization to the General German Language Association. Since the GfdS moved from Lüneburg to Wiesbaden in 1965 under Managing Director Otto Nüssler , the GfdS has its headquarters in the Hessian state capital.
activities
The GfdS maintains a language advisory service that supports private individuals, companies, authorities and institutions in clarifying language-related questions (such as spelling, grammar or style) and provides expert opinions (e.g. on first names). For some time now, the service has been chargeable for non-members.
Since 1977 the GfdS has chosen the “ words of the year ” as a kind of linguistic review of the year ; an article on "Words of the Year" appeared in the GfdS magazine Der Sprachdienst for 1971, but initially had no consequences.
Since 1987, the GfdS has awarded the media prize for language culture every two years in a public ceremony . In addition, the Alexander Rhomberg Prize for young journalists has been awarded since 1994 in cooperation with the Alexander Rhomberg Foundation . The GfdS Hans Oelschläger Prize was launched in 2014. It is aimed at journalists on radio and television who, through appropriate programs, strengthen their feeling for clear German and observe the use of language critically.
Activity for the German Bundestag
The editorial staff of the Society for the German Language at the German Bundestag has provided advice to the Bundestag and Bundesrat, as well as ministries and authorities of the federal states, on all language issues since 1966. These bodies can have texts of all kinds checked by the GfdS editorial staff for linguistic correctness and comprehensibility. Inquiries about gender-sensitive wording and about style, grammar and spelling are also areas of responsibility of the editorial staff. The task of the editorial staff of the GfdS, which is taken over for the German Bundestag within the legislative process, is regulated in Section 80a of the Bundestag's rules of procedure (GOBT):
- (1) An editorial staff set up or located at the Bundestag should, upon the decision of the lead committee, examine a draft law for linguistic accuracy and comprehensibility and, if necessary, make recommendations to the committee. The lead committee may consult the editorial staff throughout its advisory process and ask for an examination. This applies in particular to the examination of amendments that are expected to be accepted.
- (2) The editorial staff also offers other linguistic advice.
The most important task of the editorial staff at the German Bundestag is to revise the language of the texts submitted to it for examination. He tries to use simple and clear formulations, taking into account the peculiarities of the legal language and other specialist languages.
Worked for the German federal ministries from 2009 to 2012
The legal language editorial staff at the Federal Ministry of Justice was founded in 2009. It was the result of the two-year project “Understandable Laws”, which was based on a cross-party parliamentary initiative and was run until the end of 2012 under the sponsorship of the GfdS.
Magazines
The GfdS publishes two language magazines: The language service and mother tongue .
The Sprachdienst is a bimonthly publication with a print run of 3,200 copies (2007), which was created in 1957 from the practical work of the GfdS and is still its newsletter to this day.
The magazine is aimed at an audience interested in languages and contains articles on all issues relating to contemporary German. The regular overviews “ Words of the Year ” and “The Most Popular First Names” are well known. General Interest Voice Requests are published in each issue. The focus is on language development , language criticism , glosses , word history , grammar , style , phraseology , terminology , name research and spelling .
In addition, the association publishes the quarterly mother tongue and publishes books on special topics.
Guidelines on the possibilities of gendering
In November 2019, the GfdS guidelines on the possibilities of gendering were published with statements on gender-equitable language and the various means of its use. In August 2020, the GfdS published an updated version of the guidelines on its website, at the same time it announced in a press release, spellings with a gender star (teachers) , gender colon (teachers) , gender gap (teachers) , mediopoint (teachers · s) or single-I (teachers I can) be regarded as inappropriate means gender neutral sensitive. Regarding the presentation of the mentioned spellings, so-called “ gender pauses ” (pronunciation with glottic stroke ) are rejected because they cannot be written down (see criticism of speaking pauses ).
The guidelines explain the basics:
“The equality of women and men is anchored in Article 3 Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law . An important aspect of ensuring equal treatment is gender-sensitive language. [...]
Equal treatment, which is what gender equitable language is all about, is as little guaranteed with the generic feminine as with the generic masculine . "
The GfdS only recognizes double mentions (teachers) , slashes (teachers) and alternative forms (teachers, teachers) as well as brackets : teachers as suitable means of “ gendering ” .
With regard to the legal right of people of different sexes to be appropriately named, the GfdS states:
“New resources are needed. […]
As announced at the beginning, the present text contains only recommendations for a gender-equitable use of language based on a two-sex society . Particularly after it was decided to legally recognize a third gender , voices are getting louder demanding that other genders also be made visible in language. […]
Not only do new, artificial forms of personal designations have to be created (e.g. doctor, doctor , 3rd form), many grammatical additions and changes are necessary: the neuter as the third so-called 'neuter' gender in German should be in in the eyes of many people are not suited to designating people. [...] In this respect, realistic and orthographically and grammatically correct implementable possibilities of a comprehensively gender-equitable language must continue to be discussed.
organization
The chairman has been Peter Schlobinski , Professor of German Linguistics at Leibniz University Hannover , since May 2015 , and Andrea-Eva Ewels from Wiesbaden is the managing director. The Society for the German Language currently has 100 voluntary branch associations in over 35 countries (as of May 2015).
The GfdS does not see itself as a professional association or Germanic professional organization. It is open to anyone interested in the German language. According to its own information, it currently has around 3000 members in Germany and abroad (as of May 2015).
German branch associations
49 branch associations are based in Germany, with at least one branch association in each federal state. In the federal states with more than one branch association, a branch association has its seat in the respective state capital.
Most of the agencies are in North Rhine-Westphalia (Aachen, Bonn, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Münsterland, Siegen, western Ruhr area and Wuppertal) and Hesse (Bergstrasse, Darmstadt, Frankfurt am Main, Kassel, Marburg an der Lahn and the headquarters in Wiesbaden). These are followed by Saxony (Chemnitz, Dresden, Leipzig, Zittau and Zwickau) and Lower Saxony (Braunschweig, Celle, Göttingen, Hanover and Vechta), each with five branches, and Baden-Württemberg (Freiburg, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart) and Rhineland-Palatinate (Koblenz , Mainz, Pfalz and Trier) with four each.
Other federal states with several branches are Bavaria (Munich, Nuremberg, Würzburg) and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Greifswald, Rostock, Schwerin) as well as Thuringia (Erfurt and Weimar), Saxony-Anhalt (Halle / Saale and Magdeburg), Brandenburg ( Potsdam and Frankfurt / Oder) with two branches each. There is one office each in the city states of Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg, as well as in Saarland (Saarbrücken) and Schleswig-Holstein (Kiel).
Foreign branches
Another 52 branches are located abroad, 22 of which are outside Europe. With Kaliningrad, Moscow, Omsk, the polar region (Apatity), Saratov, St. Petersburg, Urals and Voronezh there are eight branches in Russia alone.
In other European countries, Brussels (Belgium), Sofia (Bulgaria), Tallinn (Estonia), Turku (Finland), Tbilisi (Georgia), Athens (Greece), London (Great Britain), Bolzano, Milan, Rome (all Italy), Zagreb (Croatia), Luxembourg, Innsbruck, Vienna (both Austria), Warsaw (Poland), Bucharest (Romania), Bratislava (Slovakia), Madrid (Spain), Prague (Czech Republic), Kiev (Ukraine) and Budapest (Hungary) branch associations .
Outside of Europe, they can be found in Africa (6), Asia (9) and America (7). The six African branches are based in Cairo (Egypt), Yaounde (Cameroon), Lomé (Togo), Johannesburg, Cape Town (both South Africa) and Windhoek (Namibia). The North American offices are located in Boston, Chicago, Madison, New York and Philadelphia (all USA). The South American branches can be found in São Paulo and Porto Alegre (both Brazil). The Asian branches are represented in Hangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai (all China), Yerevan (Armenia), Tel Aviv (Israel), Seoul (South Korea), Tokyo (Japan) and Pune (India).
Memberships / cooperations
The GfdS is represented by the chairman in the Council for German Spelling . In 2003, together with the Goethe Institute and the Institute for German Language, she founded the German Language Council , which the German Academic Exchange Service later joined.
The GfdS is in exchange with various university and non-university institutions of linguistics, in particular with the German Academy for Language and Poetry and the Institute for German Language.
Honors
In 2018, the GfdS received the City of Wiesbaden 's Culture Prize from the City of Wiesbaden .
See also
literature
- Falco Pfalzgraf: The Society for the German Language (GfdS). In: Falco Pfalzgraf: Neopurism in Germany after the turn. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2006, ISBN 978-3-631-54854-7 , pp. 171-182.
- Silke Wiechers: The Society for German Language: Prehistory, History and Work of a German Language Association. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-631-52746-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Steffi Menzenbach: The legal TÜV In: Parliament No. 27 of June 29, 2009; Retrieved August 3, 2017.
- ↑ Nicole Tepasse: Our questioner want clear answers to: Parliament No. 1-2 dated 5 January 2009;. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
- ↑ Legal language editorial staff. BMJV , accessed December 30, 2018 .
- ^ Esther Wiemann: Paragraph language: team of experts translates Jura gibberish into German. In: Der Spiegel . March 29, 2009, accessed November 23, 2020.
- ↑ The most popular first names. Accessed December 30, 2018 .
- ↑ a b c Society for German Language: Guidelines of the GfdS on the possibilities of gendering. In: GfdS.de. August 2020, accessed November 23, 2020; Quote: "Published: November 20, 2019, as of August 2020".
- ↑ Press release: GfdS: Gendersternchen and Co. do not conform to German spelling. In: GfdS.de. August 13, 2020, accessed November 23, 2020.
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^ GfdS guidelines, section The debate about gender equitable language. In: GfdS.de. August 2020, accessed on November 23, 2020.
Ibid: Section 4. a) Generic Feminine (Leipzig solution). - ↑ Become a member. Retrieved May 15, 2015 .